A Most Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy
Believe it or not, I’m having a hard time figuring out who is worse in this debt-limit farce: Republicans, Democrats or voters.
Republicans
This group easily shares the lion share of the blame, for having turned a rather routine (and probably obscure) issue into a moment to hold everything hostage to ideology. It’s very clear that the entire GOP has been taken over by the Tea Party, the most radical and inflexible group of assholes to hold positions of power. And that’s what it’s all about: power. These people, many of whom have never served in public office and clearly failed Civics 101, have quickly gotten used to their power and have already become corrupt. There is no bigger picture for these people: they are narrow, limited and intolerant. They are denialists of the first order, and they are a warning to what happens when you have denialists running anything. There’s no wonder that Michele Bachmann is even running for president, because she had the ability to sense that people don’t care what you accomplish in Congress (in her case, nothing at all) but just hold the party line. We now live in a fact-free society: it’s what you claim that’s more important than what actually occurs. The Tea Party’s success in hijacking their own party leadership is proof of this.
Democrats
The Give Up Party has remained true to form throughout this debacle. No slogans, no simple message, nothing at all to show people that suffering is around the corner with the Tea Party in charge. And as the head of the Democratic Party, there’s plenty of blame to be planted at President Obama’s feet. This man has shown himself to be a feckless « leader, » if I can use that word with enough contempt in quotes. He has been the single biggest disappointment with an unnatural aversion to engaging in an actual fight and preferring to let others do it. Witness what should have been the greatest legislative triumph of any president: health care reform. He did nothing in that fight at all, but conceded time and time again to demands from Republicans and let Democratic congressional members go home to angry crowds of very stupid people who believed every lie the GOP was telling about it. He did no great stumping (until it was getting far too late in the game), he didn’t sell a single message about what the reform actually meant.
Same thing goes for this deficit nonsense. Mr. Obama is a man who is more interested with his Place in History than engaging his enemies. He wants to be viewed as the Great Reconciliator, always pleading for bipartisanship and a willingness to cave. He made no effort to do much of anything when Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R-Powermad) unleashed the GOP master plan of destroying unions. Mr. Obama’s campaign pledge to was to « put on a pair of comfortable shoes and join the protestors. » Either he forgot to order some new ones from Zappos or just plain forgot about the pledge, because he was a no-show for the thousands of Wisconsin residents who protested the assault on collective bargaining. Even though Wisconsin Democrats left the state to prevent a vote on the union-killing bill, my first thought was: Democrats in flight, what a surprise.
The Democrats are a ship without much of a rudder, and following their leader’s actions, they are content to offer human sacrifices to appease the angry GOP gods. Even when presented with stunning gifts of Republican lies and hypocrisy, no one can come up with a simple message to drown out the insane mouthing off of their counterparts. What a waste.
Voters
Perhaps the greatest blame lies with voters, the ones who ushered in all these Tea Party jerks and seem completely oblivious to the real world consequences of their decisions. So many of these Tea Party disciples have never been in any position to govern, and they’ve proven themselves rather adept at liking the power they’ve gained and changing their tune when it suits them. As my father crudely remarked: these people could take a shit in the road and claim they had a mandate from the voters to do so.
Not one jobs bill has been introduced since the new Congress was sworn in. Not one. These people, immune to knowledge of any kind, find the entire political system so loathsome that they are inclined to destroy it from within. And with relish! They deny that the nation defaulting on its obligations is a bad thing. This position underscores the single biggest mistake the voters made about the Tea Party: when you start running the show, you’re supposed to learn how to be practical about what you can and cannot do. This is completely untrue with the Tea Party: they want it all. They want the nation to default; they want to bloodlet their own GOP leaders because they are unfit (in their eyes) to lead anything because there is no compromising with Democrat Evil. They want an end to all social programs and social nets. « We have a spending problem » is their Lord’s Prayer now. There is no meeting with the opposition, who are now viewed merely as The Enemy. The entire stupid theater of watching Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Doomed) go through such hoops to get his bill passed makes this point abundantly clear: these people cannot and will not govern.
If I didn’t have two parents on Social Security, I would sincerely want to see people suffer. I want to see all the voters who rushed to put the Tea Party in power now start scratching their heads as to why they aren’t getting their Social Security checks, or start having problems with Medicare. I want to see them pay higher and higher prescription prices; mortgage rates go up and credit card interest rates skyrocket, and their property taxes because shit rolls downhill. I want to see them finally make the connection between their hatred of federal workers meaning that national parks are closed and things cannot get done because these people have either been furloughed or laid off. I want to see them continue to insist that 2+2 = 5 while things start to crumble.
Of course, voters have amnesia, and that’s most reliable fact in any uncertain time. If the worst case scenario is that the nation actually defaults and the economy tanks again, who will get the blame? The president, of course. « Obama destroyed America! » is already being printed for banners and bumper stickers. Destroying the social contract is the Tea Party’s goal, purely for the sake of winning the 2012 president election. And there are plenty of very stupid people who will believe it.
The Tea Party is counting on it.